Tuesday 8 December 2009 07.42 EST
First published on Tuesday 8 December 2009 07.42 EST

It is a shame that the thugs among Coritiba's fans decided to vent their frustration over relegation by trashing the club's stadium in a horrible battle with the police. After all, the 38th edition of the Brazilian championship came to an end last Sunday with enough drama to rival one of the country's famous soap operas. A happy ending was impossible for everyone so the honour fell to Flamengo, the most popular club in Brazil, who clinched their sixth national title by beating Grêmio 2-1 in a crowded Maracanã. They also ended a 17-year drought in the competition they used to rule when the likes of Zico walked the pitch.

Having won a string of the evermore meaningless state titles and the 2006 Brazilian Cup, Flamengo had – apart from a third-place finish in 2006 – merely alternated mediocre campaigns and dangerous flirtations with relegation since 1992. It is a curse that in the last two decades has hit Rio's three other big clubs (Botafogo, Fluminense and Vasco) and helped throw the city's football into disarray, alongside the mismanagement that still prevails in many sectors of Brazilian football. No surprise that in the last 10 years only Vasco (2000) have managed a Brazilian title for the Cariocas.

The malaise surrounding Rio's football has given birth to a series of theories that blend in with the city's problems since it lost its status as Brazil's capital in 1960. For many people, the decay was caused by a mixture of identity crisis and a heritage of egomania and corruption from the days when the Portuguese Crown used Rio as a base – something that was reflected in the city's football in contrast to the entrepreneurship of neighbouring São Paulo, Brazil's financial centre. As a matter of fact, from 1990 to 2008, Paulista sides grabbed the title 12 times against only four from the Cariocas.

And nobody was betting the Rio duck would be broken in 2009. Fluminense and Botafogo had to fight for survival from the first rounds, only escaping the threat of relegation on Sunday, while Flamengo's performance did not fill their fans with enthusiasm. In July, the team lagged in eighth place amid unrest between unpaid players and a board involved in political infighting and growing debts. On the pitch, the team were relying on a burnt-out Adriano, who in April had threatened to quit football for good after another bad spell at Internazionale, and on the veteran Serbian midfielder Dejan Petkovic, whose signing at 36 was received with bafflement even by those who still remembered his previous heroics for the club.

It was no surprise that even Ronaldo, desperate to stretch his footballing career, snubbed the side he has supported since childhood. To make matters worse, there was no consensus over who should coach the team. The caretaker manager, Andrade, was a member of the side that won four titles the 80s but he did not seem to convince the split factions at Flamengo.

However, just like a redemption in a good soap opera, it all suddenly clicked. Flamengo were helped by the seesaw nature of Brazilian football. The exodus of players is no longer limited to household names – there were 1,200 Brazilians playing abroad in 2007 – and Flamengo started climbing the table with a series of results that included six clean sheets in a row in the final part of the season. Away from the pressures of San Siro, Adriano rediscovered the joy of hitting the net. He scored 19 times over the course of the season, finishing as joint top scorer and resuscitating his chances with the national team, despite a chronic dependence on his right foot. He has also been linked with a move to West Ham in January.

Petkovic, whose return to Flamengo also involved a settlement for unpaid wages dating from 2001, compensated for his tired legs with intelligence and precision – on Sunday, for example, his only noticeable participation was the corner headed in by Ronaldo Angelim for the winning goal. Angelim himself had a soapish story to tell: in February, a freak thigh injury required emergency surgery to avoid amputation.

Unlike the years when play-offs gave Flamengo sides a chance to snatch the title in the knock-out stages, this time they needed to win the title the old-fashioned way (since 2001, the Brazilian championship has been played under a league format). When they did, Andrade became the first black manager to win the national title. The kudos comes not because Flamengo have managed to do it with a slightly above-average side, since many Brazilian teams seem to fit that profile these days; Flamengo's heroics sprang from fighting their own hubris. In the year Rio was awarded the 2016 Olympics, it may be a sign of better things to come.